Do You Trust Your VPN? Are You Sure? Virtual private networks are now a must-have privacy tool. But good luck figuring out which ones will actually make you safer February 28, 2019 https://slate.com/technology/2019/02/best-vpn-companies-trust-privacy.html
That can be a little tricky...especially in a world of 14 eyes where each country goverment agency is kissing the **** of each other. But geolocation based criteria is still better than naively believing snake-oil advertising... So basically, make your bet and hope for best!
You can't "trust" a VPN service. I mean, how would you know? Sure, if they've been around for several years, and there have been no reports about pwning users, that provides some evidence. So anyway, if it really matters to you -- if you really need to trust your VPN uplink -- use nested VPN chains. The first VPN service knows who you are, and what VPN service that you connect through it to. And the last VPN service knows what sites you access online, and what VPN service that you connect to it through. But unless the VPN services are both working with your adversary, there's no way to connect who you are with what sites you access online. Except through brute-force traffic analysis. Which the NSA can do, but not likely the FBI. And if privacy really matters to you, use nested VPN chains plus Tor.
VPN's are popping up like Starbucks, on every corner. Who to trust is the big question. When it come to business, trust no one.
Also, it entirely depends of use case: - Do you just want to prevent your local ISP snooping you ? Heck, just rent VPS-server (cheapest ones cost few dollars a year) and setup SSH tunnel and your done (cheapskates can just use Tor). - Do you want to bypass geoblocking ? Ditto. No need to pay VPN-provider and believe their claims they do not log. VPS-server with SSH tunnel more than enough. (cheapskates can continue using Tor or just grab some freely available SOCKS5 proxy while being aware of risks) - Do you want to warez/torrent/hack or just tired of all the mass surveillance capitalism? Get a VPN! Several of them. And chain them together with Tor like mentioned above. EDIT: One way to find out if "no logging" VPN-provider is lying to you is if they have restriction of number of devices that can be used with their service. You can't restrict the number of device connections to VPN-provider servers without at least some logging. EDIT2: So instead of "no logging" or "zero logging" claims, VPN-providers should clearly state in their front page, what they log and how long. And the best one out of the bunch would be those that log the absolute minimum amount of data for most shortest time. EDIT3: And finally, someone should maybe keep updated list of lying VPN providers because public memory is short. So far at least HideMyAss, EarthVPN, PureVPN and IPVanish has been caught pants down of lying ... EDIT4: One more thing: Besides telling the truth of "no logs" VPN providers should also provide truth of fake servers (or "virtual servers" as they call them). Study how to pinpoint fake servers offered by VPN provider: https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/nicolasc/publications/Weinberg-IMC18.pdf
Eh. I've used both AzireVPN and OVPN, and I trust them both. OVPN doesn't run with any form of permanent storage so if the server is turned off, everything is gone. AzireVPN claims to do the same. Probably wouldn't trust them if I had a nuclear bomb in the basement, though.
Trusting or not a product is universal question, same as trusting what a cola brand is putting in their drink. Just do some little research, if you have any doubts , just don't use it.
By pointing that out, writer actually managed to reinforce my avoidance of any 5-eye countries... And this is also why Australia (with the weakest privacy laws of the 5) passed the anti-encryption law last december. You don't need RADIUS for VPN to work but I would love to see how many actually use it....
